"Time works wonders, Joe," he said. "His bodily health is improving
wonderfully, and at last that must act upon his mind."
"But it does not," I said. "He has walked at least six miles to-day as
if in a dream. Oh, doctor!" I exclaimed, "we cannot take him back like
this. You keep bidding me hope, and it seems no use."
He smiled at me in his calm satisfied way.
"And yet I've done something, Joe," he said. "We found him--we got him
away--we had him first a hopeless invalid--he is now rapidly becoming a
strong healthy man."
"Healthy!"
"In body, boy. Recollect that for years he seems to have been kept
chained up by the savages like some wild beast, perhaps through some
religious scruples against destroying the life of a white man who was
wise in trees and plants. Likely enough they feared that if they killed
such a medicine-man it might result in a plague or curse."
"That is why they spared us both," said Mr Francis, who had heard the
latter part of our conversation; "and the long course of being kept
imprisoned there seemed to completely freeze up his brain as it did
mine. That and the fever and blows I received," he said excitedly.
"There were times when--"
He clapped his hands to his head as if he dared not trust himself to
speak, and turned away.
"Yes, that is it, my lad," said the doctor quietly; "his brain has
become paralysed as it were. A change may come at any time. Under the
circumstances, in spite of your mother's anxiety, we'll wait and go
slowly homeward. Let me see," he continued, turning to a little
calendar he kept, "to-morrow begins the tenth month of our journey.
Come, be of good heart. We've done wonders; nature will do the rest."
Two days later we had come to a halt in a lovely little glen through
which trickled a clear spring whose banks were brilliant with flowers.
We were all busy cooking and preparing to halt there for the night. My
father had walked the whole of the morning, and now had wandered slowly
away along the banks of the stream, Mr Francis being a little further
on, while Jimmy was busy standing beside a pool spearing fish.
I glanced up once or twice to see that my father was standing motionless
on the bank, and then I was busying myself once more cutting soft boughs
to make a bed when Jimmy came bounding up to me with his eyes starting
and mouth open.
"Where a gun, where a gun?" he cried. "Big bunyip down 'mong a trees,
try to eat Jimmy. Ask for um dinner, all aloud, oh."
"Hush! be quiet!" I cried, catching his arm; "what do you mean?"
"Big bunyip down 'mong stones say, `Hoo! much hungry; where my boy?'"
"Some one said that?" I cried.
"Yes, `much hungry, where my boy?' Want eat black boy; eat Jimmy!"
"What nonsense, Jimmy!" I said. "Don't be such a donkey. There are no
bunyips."
"Jimmy heard um say um!" he cried, stamping his spear on the ground.
Just then I involuntarily glanced in the direction where my father
stood, and saw him stoop and pick up a flower or two.
My heart gave a bound.
The next minute he was walking slowly towards Mr Francis, to whom he
held out the flowers; and then I felt giddy, for I saw them coming
slowly towards our camp, both talking earnestly, my father seeming to be
explaining something about the flowers he had picked.
The doctor had seen it too, and he drew me away, after cautioning Jimmy
to be silent.
And there we stood while those two rescued prisoners talked quietly and
earnestly together, but it was in the savage tongue.